11th August 2026
Scotland's Councils Are Changing: From Running Everything to Building Partnerships
The future of Scottish local government may not be about councils doing more. It may increasingly be about councils bringing together communities, businesses and other organisations to make things happen.
A press release from Highland Council this week about Fort William 2040 provides an interesting glimpse of how the role of councils is changing.
At first sight, it is simply an update on a long-term regeneration programme.
But look more closely and it reveals something much bigger.
Fort William 2040 is not presented as a conventional council programme in which the council decides what needs to be built, finds the money and delivers everything itself.
Instead, it brings together Highland Council, communities, businesses and partner organisations around a shared vision for the future of Fort William and Lochaber.
That may increasingly become the way local government has to operate.
The old model is becoming harder to sustain
For decades, the public expectation was relatively straightforward.
If a town needed a community facility, the council might build it.
If a leisure facility was required, the council could provide it.
If a town centre needed investment, the council would often lead.
If transport infrastructure needed improving, the council would develop the plans.
But the financial environment facing Scottish councils has changed dramatically.
Councils have rising demands for social care, education, housing, roads and other essential services while having limited resources to fund everything that communities want.
That creates an unavoidable question:
Can councils continue to be the owners, funders and operators of everything that communities need?
Increasingly, the answer appears to be no.
But that does not necessarily mean councils become less important.
It could mean they become different.
Fort William 2040 is an example of the new approach
The Highland Council announcement says that 13 initiatives have already been delivered through the programme, with work continuing on many others.
The projects cover an unusually wide range of areas:
housing
flood protection
active travel
visitor facilities
digital connectivity
town centre investment
transport
culture and leisure
healthcare
economic development
community facilities.
That is important because no single organisation is realistically going to deliver all of those things.
The strength of the programme therefore comes from bringing different organisations together.
The council becomes a coordinator, facilitator and strategic partner, rather than necessarily being the organisation responsible for every individual project.
That is a significant change in the philosophy of local government.
And it connects directly with Community Asset Transfer
This is where the Fort William story connects with the recent decision over Invergordon Town Hall.
In Invergordon, the community is taking on greater responsibility for an important local asset.
In Fort William, the emphasis is on partnerships bringing together public bodies, businesses and communities to develop the town.
They may appear to be different developments.
In reality, they could be part of the same long-term transformation.
The old approach was:
Council owns → Council funds → Council manages.
The emerging approach increasingly looks like:
Council coordinates → Community and partners participate → Different organisations invest → Local people benefit.
That is potentially a very significant change.
Why this is happening now
The financial pressure on councils is an obvious part of the explanation.
But there is another factor.
Local communities increasingly want a greater say in what happens in their own towns.
Community development trusts are a good example.
In Caithness, organisations in Wick and Thurso are already demonstrating that communities can develop projects, own assets and create enterprises rather than simply waiting for the council to provide everything.
That changes the relationship between the council and the community.
The community is no longer simply asking:
"What is the council going to do for us?"
It can increasingly ask:
"What can we do ourselves, and where can the council help us make it happen?"
That is a much more powerful question.
But partnership working does not mean councils disappear
This is an important distinction.
There is a danger of interpreting all of this as simply another way of cutting council services.
That would be too simplistic.
Some responsibilities cannot realistically be transferred to communities.
A development trust cannot replace a council's responsibility for the entire road network.
A community group cannot run the entire education system.
A voluntary organisation cannot be expected to provide comprehensive social care.
Large infrastructure projects require substantial public-sector expertise and borrowing capacity.
So the future is unlikely to be about councils withdrawing completely.
It is more likely to be about deciding which things councils are uniquely placed to provide and which things can be delivered better through partnerships.
Fort William's transport plans demonstrate the difference
The FW2040 programme identifies improvements to the bus station and wider transport connections alongside an Integrated Transport Plan.
Transport is an excellent example of why partnership matters.
A successful transport system involves:
Highland Council
transport operators
Scottish Government
infrastructure providers
businesses
tourism interests
communities
pedestrians and cyclists.
No single organisation controls the whole system.
The council therefore has to bring the different interests together.
That is increasingly what effective local government may look like.
Culture and leisure could be another test
The programme's recent appraisal of culture and leisure provision is also interesting.
The council says it has identified opportunities for more modern, flexible and accessible facilities and is now considering how the findings should influence future investment decisions.
That wording is significant.
It does not automatically promise a new council-owned facility.
Instead, it suggests that the council is looking at what is required and then considering how investment might best be delivered.
That could potentially involve community organisations, charities, commercial operators, public bodies or combinations of them.
Again, the council's role becomes one of creating the conditions for investment, rather than necessarily providing everything itself.
This could be particularly important for rural Scotland
The model may be even more relevant in rural areas.
A large city can sometimes support a specialist facility because it has a substantial population.
A small Highland town cannot necessarily do that.
But a community organisation may be able to combine:
grants
council support
charitable funding
community fundraising
commercial income
volunteer effort
private investment.
That can make projects possible which would otherwise struggle to obtain sufficient funding.
It also keeps decision-making closer to the people who use the facilities.
There is, however, a danger
Partnerships sound attractive.
But they can become another way of disguising the transfer of responsibility from government to communities.
If a council says:
"We cannot afford to run this facility, but we will help you establish a community organisation to run it,"
the community needs to ask some hard questions.
Who pays for the building?
Who pays for major repairs?
Who carries the insurance?
Who employs the staff?
What happens if grant funding disappears?
What happens when the volunteers eventually retire?
And what happens if the project loses money?
Community ownership and partnership working can be extremely successful.
But they need sustainable financial models, not simply enthusiastic volunteers.
Transparency will become increasingly important
One particularly encouraging part of the Fort William announcement is the promise to improve online information so people can follow the progress of individual projects.
That matters.
Once councils become coordinators of large partnership programmes, accountability can become more complicated.
If a council owns a facility and spends £5 million on it, the responsibility is relatively obvious.
But if a project involves the council, Scottish Government, a development trust, a private company and several other organisations, who is ultimately responsible if something goes wrong?
Good partnership working therefore requires clear responsibilities, transparent funding and measurable outcomes.
Otherwise "partnership" can become a convenient word that makes it difficult for anyone to establish who is actually accountable.
Could this be the future for Caithness?
There are obvious parallels with what is happening elsewhere in Highland.
Wick has its development trust.
Thurso has its development trust.
Communities elsewhere are increasingly taking control of buildings and other assets.
Highland Council is transferring assets through Community Asset Transfer.
And Fort William 2040 is demonstrating another model in which the council works with communities, businesses and other organisations to develop a long-term plan.
The pieces are beginning to fit together.
Rather than one organisation doing everything, many organisations contribute something different.
That could become particularly important as councils face continuing financial pressures.
The council of the future may look very different
Perhaps the most interesting question is what Highland Council – and councils across Scotland – will look like in another 10 or 20 years.
It may have fewer buildings.
It may directly operate fewer facilities.
Communities may own more assets.
Development trusts may run more enterprises.
Private companies may provide some services.
Charities may become involved in others.
And councils may concentrate increasingly on strategic planning, regulation, infrastructure, essential services and bringing organisations together.
That does not necessarily mean weaker local government.
Done properly, it could actually mean more locally controlled communities.
But it will require a major change in thinking.
Councils will need to become comfortable with sharing control.
Communities will need to accept greater responsibility.
Businesses will need to recognise that successful local economies depend on successful communities.
And governments will need to provide communities with enough financial and technical support to make the model work.
A quiet revolution in Scottish local government?
The Invergordon Town Hall transfer and Fort William 2040 may look like completely separate stories.
One involves a historic building.
The other involves a long-term regeneration strategy.
But together they reveal something much more interesting.
Scotland may be moving from a model of local government in which councils provide and control most things towards one in which councils increasingly enable, coordinate and work alongside communities.
The financial pressures on councils may have helped accelerate the process.
But the result does not necessarily have to be a reduction in local ambition.
It could instead produce something rather different:
communities owning more, businesses investing more, councils coordinating more and decisions being made closer to the people affected by them.
That could be a particularly important development for rural Scotland.
And if Wick, Thurso, Invergordon and Fort William are early examples of the direction of travel, we may be looking at the beginning of a much wider transformation.
The biggest question is no longer simply:
"What can the council afford to provide?"
It may increasingly become:
"What can the council, the community and its partners achieve together?"
That is a very different vision of local government – and one that could become increasingly important as Scotland's councils face the financial realities of the years ahead.